Every so often, I experience a harrowing dream in which no matter the location, I face the same two-pronged conundrum:
1. My bladder is full.
2. There’s nowhere to pee.
In The House of Witchcraft, Luke (Andy J. Forest, Bridge to Hell) also is vexed by a recurring nightmare with larger stakes, I guess:
1. He enters a gorgeous country house on a spacious estate.
2. In its kitchen stands an old witch.
3. She’s boiling his disembodied head in a goddamn cauldron.
When Luke awakes, he’s hardly better off: His six-month marriage to queen of the harpies, Marta (Sonia Petrovna, Not for Publication), is on thin ice. Attempting to salvage their union, Marta’s rented a gorgeous country house on a spacious estate. No points for assuming the home is straight from his slumber, because of course it is.
Therefore, freaky things freak. Like, you know that scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds where Tippi Hedren is attacked in the attic? That happens here, but in a bedroom and with birds replaced by pillow feathers. In other sequences, writer/director Umberto Lenzi presents a sleepwalking Marta, a black cat with bloody paws, a maggot-ridden skeleton and — hey, did Luke just witness some old hag (Maria Cumani Quasimodo, Nosferatu in Venice) crowbar a priest on the grand lawn? I’ll never tell. But her face is terrifying.
In terms of how The House of Witchcraft stands against among the rest of Lenzi’s haunted house output, the man has fared worse (The House of Lost Souls) and more delirious (Ghosthouse). This made-for-TV chiller may not be “too damn sinister,” to borrow a phrase from the estate owner’s niece (Marina Giulia Cavalli, Alien from the Abyss), but for those seeking ’80s Italian horror with all the fixtures, it scratches the itch. And whatta view! —Rod Lott